WELLERISMS

An example of humour so dry as to be brittle, a Wellerism is a sentence with a speaker and a narrator; after the speaker speaks, the narrator adds commentary that undermines the sentiment of the speaker sometimes by employing some equivocation--changing the meaning of the speaker's idea; other times, the narrator offers description to show that, what the speaker said, may not be so true, after all. Wellerisms can be found in stories, when they take on their greatest profundity, but they can also be found in lists just because they are fun to read.

I have compiled a brief list of some of the better known Wellerisms from a variety of sources on the internet, and from examples that I received from an literature professor some 25 years ago. I haven't a clue where she found them without the internet. *Sigh* It was a different world.

"Everyone to his own taste," the woman said as she kissed her cow.

"We'd better rehearse this," said the undertaker after the coffin had fallen out of the vehicle.

"It's all coming back to me now," Captain Smith remarked after he spat into the wind.

"Eureka!" Archimedes said to the skunk.

"Capital punishment," the boy said when his teacher seated him among the girls.

"I've been to see an old flame," the young man said when he returned from Vesuvius.

"I hope I made myself clear," said the water as it passed through the filter.

"That's my mission in life," said the monk as he pointed to his monastery.

"My business is looking good," said the model.